Critiquing and Editing Service

The Network provides its members with access to professional editors for manuscript critiques at below market rates. Each editor and critiquer has been carefully selected for their excellent qualifications and professional reputation.

The North Carolina Writers’ Network offers an ongoing critiquing and editing service for its members. Through this program, Network writers have the opportunity to open a dialogue about their work with established writers and editors of varying backgrounds and areas of expertise.

"Amy Rogers framed the feedback in a way that left me inspired to improve my novel. She provided excellent overall critiques and within the manuscript highlighted specific things I’d done well and need to do more often as well as repeated errors that I need to be aware of. I’m very pleased with the cost and quality of editing though the NC Writer’s Network. Thank you all for providing this service."—NCWN member Heather Brewer

"It was unbelievably helpful . . . I was totally impressed, and it was well worth the price. You have a very satisfied member."—NCWN member Reid Wilson

"I received Betsy Humphreys' edits. They are very useful and give me much to correct but also reflect upon! Great service and a very exciting opportunity!"—NCWN member Karin Lukas-Cox

"I have been working on my novel for quite some time and really wondered if I was on the right track. Therefore, I decided it would be most helpful to send a few pages just to see what someone thought about it. I must say, I am really glad I did, as Mr. Manchester's words greatly inspired me to continue on."—NCWN member Jennifer Bower

"I’ve never been edited as thoroughly and with as much consideration as Linda (Hobson) showed toward my story. Her micro edits were precise, and her macro edits found things inside the story that even I didn’t realize were there. She wrote all over every page—an incredible amount of work for what turned out to be a very reasonable fee....I found her edits and critique to be spot-on: demanding more from me as a writer, while also engaging with the story so completely that I felt like she was really invested in its eventual success. That’s the very definition of a great editor, isn’t it? " —Anonymous NCWN member

Instructions

All prose manuscripts should be double-spaced, single-sided, with 1-inch margins and in 12-point, Times New Roman font.

Poetry must be single-spaced, with a limit of only one poem per page, with 1-inch margins and in 12-point, Times New Roman font.

Stage plays and screenplays must be submitted in proper format. Guidelines for stage plays and screenplays can be found here (courtesy of Story Sense) and here (courtesy of Writers Store).

Please number your pages.

Manuscripts should NOT be bound when submitted.

Please indicate your first preference plus two back-ups for a critiquer (see list below). Otherwise, we will select an appropriate critiquer based on availability.

To submit your work to the Network’s Critiquing & Editing Service, please send a single envelope or package with the following:

Your manuscript, properly formatted

A summary, synopsis, or table of contents for the critiquer’s reference (do not include this page when calculating the fee)

Payment by check or money order, made payable to the North Carolina Writers' Network

A self-addressed envelope with sufficient postage for your manuscript

Please mail to:

NCWN Critiquing Service P.O. Box 21591 Winston-Salem, NC 27120

The critiquer will return the critiqued manuscript to you directly, using the SASE you provided.

If you have any questions, please call 336.293.8844 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A Manuscript Consultation with your critiquer may be scheduled after the initial critique is complete, but is neither required nor guaranteed. The fee for a post-critique consultation is $50/hour, with no base fee. Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if interested in scheduling a consultation.

Critiquers

The Network’s roster of critiquers is selected in accordance with the highest standards of excellence, including publication requirements and extensive mentoring and editing experience.

Karen M. Alley -- nonfiction, fictionAlley has worked in the publishing industry for almost twenty years in various roles. After graduating from Davidson College, her career began with a job as a production assistant at a book production company that produced books for HarperCollins. Since then she has served as editor of Carolina Gardener Magazine and the business-to-business publication, the IGA Grocergram. Today she is using those publishing and editing skills gained in working in the book and magazine publishing fields in her work as a freelance writer and editor. Her articles have been published in O’Henry magazine, Charlotte Parent magazine, and various business publications. Her editing interests include nonfiction, specifically gardening, parenting, and business topics, as well as romance and literary fiction.

Ellyn Bache -- line editing, fiction Bache is the author of nine novels, including Safe Passage, which was made into a movie starring Susan Sarandon; three short-story collections, including one that received the Willa Cather Fiction Prize; and dozens of short stories that appeared in literary and commercial magazines. As one of the founders of the small press, Banks Channel Books, she edited the guidebook What Locals Know about Wilmington and its Beaches and later judged and edited the winners of the Carolina Novel Award. She is past fiction editor of the literary magazines Antietam Review and Emrys Journal, and has taught fiction classes for NCWN, Emrys, and OLLI at Furman. Visit her at www.ellynbache.com.

Gregg Cusick -- flash fiction, short fiction, longer fictionGregg Cusick holds a Master’s in English/Creative Writing from NCSU, where he also taught English Composition and Literature. His story collection, My Father Moves Through Time Like a Dirigible, was published by Livingston Press in 2014, and his stories have appeared in over two dozen journals and won numerous awards, including The Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and The Florida Review Editor’s Prize. He has been a freelance editor with Carolina Academic Press and for the past nine years a judge for the Raleigh Fine Arts Society student fiction contests. Additionally, he has been a literacy tutor for the past thirteen years. Gregg believes strongly that every piece of writing is important, valuable, and also improvable. His aim is to help writers tap the heart of their fiction/memoir, and to help make each piece the best possible, truest to the writer’s vision.

Ann Deagon -- poetry Deagon took her doctorate in Classics at UNC Chapel Hill and served as Professor of Humanities and Writer in Residence at Guilford College until her retirement. She was editor of The Guilford Review, director of PoetryCenter Southeast, and was instrumental in establishing the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She has received an NEA Fellowship in Literature. Since retirement, she has worked in theater, advertising, and film, while continuing to present readings and sing her original blues.

Golda Fried -- fiction, screenplaysFried has taught creative writing and English composition at Guilford Technical Community College for more than ten years. She is the author of one collection of short stories, Darkness Then a Blown Kiss, and one coming-of-age novel, Nellcott is My Darling, which she recently adapted into a screenplay with a co-writer. Nellcott is My Darling was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award in her native Canada. She has a BA in Film and Communications from McGill and a Masters in Creative Writing from Concordia University. Website: www.goldafried.com.

Kathy Goodkin -- poetryKathy Goodkin is the author of the poetry collection Sleep Paralysis (dancing girl press, 2017) and an editor for Gazing Grain Press. Her poems and criticism appear widely in journals such as Field, Denver Quarterly, RHINO, Redivider, The Volta, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, where she served as Editor-In-Chief for the literary magazine Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Joseph A. Lohman III Poetry Prize. She has taught creative writing, literature, and composition in a wide range of community and academic settings, including universities, community colleges, and maximum security prisons. Her editing experience includes literary and scholarly journals and presses. Find her online at www.kathygoodkin.com.

Linda Hobson -- fiction, nonfictionHobson, the author of a book on novelist Walker Percy and editor of a second, has a Ph.D in English from the University of Alabama and is a graduate of both Denison and Duke. She is at present an editor and book reviewer. Hobson has edited many published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry as well as taught writing to adults and to secondary- and university-level students. Her literary interests are American fiction and nonfiction and English/British literature.

Betsy Humphreys -- nonfiction (journalistic or creative) Humphreys has been a weekly columnist for the LenoirNews-Topic newspaper; Southeast regional editor of Highways, a national travel magazine; a regional reporter for State Journal; and editorial staffer for Cost Engineering. She has been a freelance writer for twenty-five years. Her articles on travel, business, religion, and family life have been published in the Charlotte Observer, Wonderful West Virginia, North Carolina Literary Review, and Marriage and Family Living. She has won Charlotte Writers, NC Silver Arts, and ByLine Magazine creative non-fiction contests.

Susan Stafford Kelly -- line editing, fiction Susan Stafford Kelly attended St. Catherine’s School, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She has twice been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and has taught creative writing for Woodberry Forest School, Salem College, UNCG, and the North Carolina Writers' Network. Her novel, How Close We Come, won the Carolina Novel Award in 1997, was reissued nationally in 1998 by Warner Books, was an Alternate Selection in the Book-of-the-Month Club, and was published in Russian and German. In 2001, Warner published her second novel, Even Now. Pegasus Books published her novels, The Last of Something in 2006, Now You Know in 2007, and in May 2010, her fifth novel, By Accident, which has been awarded the 2010 Sir Walter Raleigh Award.

Stephen Kirk -- fiction, nonfiction Stephen Kirk edited over 200 books in a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction categories during his tenure at John F. Blair, Publisher, including multiple winners of prizes including the Sir Walter Raleigh Award, the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, the Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Storytelling World Award, the National Outdoor Book Award, and the Parents’ Choice Award. He is the author of Voices from the Outer Banks, Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia, and First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina and has been reprinted in the Best American Short Stories series.

Steven Manchester -- line editing, fiction Manchester is the published author of twelve books including The Unexpected Storm - The Gulf War Legacy, Jacob Evans, A Father's Love, Warp II and At The Stroke of Midnight, as well as several books under the pseudonym, Steven Herberts. He is an accomplished speaker and currently teaches the popular workshops, "Publish: See Your Work In Print and Writing Fiction That Sells" for UMASS - Dartmouth, Southcoast Learning Network in Massachusetts, as well as the Learning Connection of Rhode Island. As a professional editor, he provides line-by-line editing for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure, as well as critical commentary on plot, character development, scene setting, and dialogue. As a well-published author, Manchester understands the polish needed to approach potential agents and publishers and will review cover letters and synopses. He has also written The Author's Toolbox, assisting other writers in their quest to be published. See: www.stevenmanchester.com.

Jen McConnel -- children's, MG, YA, and NA McConnel holds a MS in Library Science and is completing her MFA in Children’s Literature. She teaches college composition, in addition to courses and workshops on fiction, publishing, and more. Her published works include The Secret of Isobel Key, its sequel Her Secret Inheritance, and the forthcoming Young Adult title Beautiful Curse. Her work has been published by Weiser Books, Bloomsbury Spark, Month9Books, and Swoon Romance, and her literary interests include books for kids and teens, specifically Young Adult and New Adult titles. Visit http://www.jenmcconnel.com to learn more.

Elizabeth Oliver -- flash fiction, short fiction, nonfiction, line editing Oliver is the founding managing editor of The Rambler, a national literary magazine. She has extensive experience critiquing and editing across genres, from flash fiction to long memoir pieces. She is passionate about the preservation of personal voice in stories and has worked with writers with a variety of experience, from beginners to accomplished authors. Oliver holds a BA in journalism and an MFA in creative writing; her work has appeared in various publications and the flash fiction anthology Long Story Short (UNC Press).

Alice Osborn -- speculative fiction, fiction, memoir, poetry Alice Osborn, MA, is the author of two books of poetry, Unfinished Projects (Main Street Rag, 2010) and Right Lane Ends (Catawba, 2006); she is a manuscript editor, freelance writer, and storyteller. A former Raleigh Charter High School English teacher, Alice has served as a Writer-in-Residence in the Artists in the Schools program since 2009 and has taught creativity, memoir, and business workshops to Triangle residents for five years. Her work appears in Raleigh’s News and Observer, The Pedestal Magazine, and in numerous journals and anthologies. Website: www.aliceosborn.com.

A.D. Reed -- nonfiction, fiction Reed has been a professional writer and editor for more than thirty years, in journalism, commercial writing, and book editing and publishing. Prior to returning to North Carolina in 1993, he worked as a writer, copywriter, and marketing executive with NBC Television in New York, while moonlighting as a freelance editor for ArtNews and Antiques World Books. He has edited Asheville’s monthly Urban News since its founding in 2005, previously wrote a regular column for The Asheville Citizen-Times, and edited its monthly neighborhood edition, West Asheville News. Since 2004 he has worked with five writers on six books: two nonfiction volumes by Prof. Mallory McDuff of Warren Wilson College, Natural Saints (Oxford University Press, USA, 2010), and Sacred Acts (New Society Publishers, 2012); the forthcoming novel Trang Sen by Sarah-Ann Smith; two autobiographies, and the 2011 philosophical memoir Unbelievable: Faith, Reason, & the Search for Truth, by Joseph R. Haun. Reed is also the founder and owner of Pisgah Press in Asheville.

Dawn Reno Langley -- line editing, fiction, nonfiction Dawn Reno Langley is a Fulbright scholar (Pakistan) with an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College, and a Ph.D in Interdisciplinary Studies from The Union Institute and University. She began her career in journalism, writing and editing for such magazines and newspapers as Vermont Woman, USAir Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, and dozens more. She has managed, edited, or written for literary journals such as howl!, The Hyco Review, The Green Mountains Review, The Oklahoma Review, Burrow Press, the Provo Canyon Review, and many others. Her published books include children’s books, YA novels, nonfiction books on art and antiques, and novels, including her most recent, a National Book Award nominee titled The Mourning Parade. Finally, she has taught writing at many levels, from Montessori grammar school kids to graduate level university, and in several countries. Reno Langley offers developmental editing on literary and academic texts, as well as line editing on most other written works.

Amy Rogers --fiction and nonfiction Amy Rogers was a founder and the Publisher of Novello Festival Press, the award-winning independent press that put more than 300 writers into print since its founding in 2000. Rogers’ books include Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas and Red Pepper Fudge and Blue Ribbon Biscuits. Her work was included in Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing. Rogers is a frequent food and culture commentator for NPR station WFAE. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the design magazine American Bungalow, the literary magazine the Oxford American, and the Charlotte Observer. She has been Writer in Residence at the Wildacres Center and a program presenter at dozens of events, festivals, arts centers, schools, and other venues.

Ellen Shepard -- plays, screenplays Ellen Shepard, a native of Los Angeles, is a professional screenwriter and playwright. A member of the WGA, she has developed screenplays for Universal Pictures, Blake Edwards Entertainment, and Par Par Productions. Shepard is a noted playwright and director, with plays having been produced in Los Angeles and North Carolina. She studied writing with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paul Zindel at the Actors Studio West, who said this of her work, "At no time since I've been here (at the Actor's Studio) through all our sessions, did my mind ever have to shift into any critical mode... You just have total confidence in what you're doing here. " She is on the faculty of St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, where she developed their BA degree in Film. Her classes include Intro to Screenwriting, Feature Screenwriting I & II, Character Development, and Playwriting.

Debra Simon -- line editing, nonfiction, fiction Debra Simon, editor and publisher of Carolina Woman magazine, has worked with hundreds of novelists, playwrights, essayists, and journalists to polish their writing. While interning at The Wall Street Journal, Simon researched and wrote daily articles as well as three front-page stories. She served as a New York-based reporter for Reuters, a copy editor for the Hartford Courant, and an assistant business editor for the Miami Herald. Following her move to North Carolina, Simon struck out on her own, creating Lean Times, a regional wellness magazine. Later, during a year-long backpacking trip around the world, she developed the idea for Carolina Woman. Launched in 1993, the magazine has a readership of 100,000. One of its most popular features is the annual writing contest. As a freelancer, Simon has contributed to publications ranging from Businessweek and Advertising Age to Seventeen magazine.

Eleanora E. Tate -- children’s fiction,nonfiction Eleanora E. Tate is the author of eleven books for children and young adults. She has been a featured author at conferences such as the International Reading Association, the East Carolina University Literary Homecoming, the North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference, the Novello Festival, the Sand Hills Writers Conference, and the Dallas (TX) Children's Literary Festival. She won the 1999 NABS Zora Neale Hurston Award, the 2000 Dr. Annette Lewis Phinazee Award, and a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship. Two of her books have won Parents' Choice Awards; two others were American Booksellers Association "Pick of the Lists"; two were made into audio books, and another was made into an award-winning television film. She's been an author in schools and libraries across the country for nearly 30 years. Her newest book is Celeste's Harlem Renaissance, which won the AAUW North Carolina Book Award for Juvenile Literature, and an International Reading Association Teacher's Choice Award. http://www.eleanoraetate.com.

Robert Wallace -- fiction, nonfiction, line editing Wallace has received an Emerging Artist grant from the Durham Arts Council, a Writer’s Fellowship from the NC Arts Council, and has been a Blumenthal reader. He has had fiction and nonfiction published in various journals and newspapers, including the Bryant Literary Review, Wellspring, Aethlon, the O.Henry Festival Stories, and the Raleigh News & Observer. His work has also been in several anthologies, including Racing Home: New Short Stories by Award Winning North Carolina Writers. Wallace's first novel was published in 2007. A Hold On Time was published by Paper Journey Press.

Tamra Wilson -- fiction, nonfiction Wilson is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and earned her MFA at Stonecoast. She has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, a Blumenthal reader, and the recipient of an artist project grant funded by the N.C. Arts Council. All but two of twenty-one stories in her collection Dining with Robert Redford were previously published in such journals as The MacGuffin, Emrys Journal, Epiphany and North Carolina Literary Review. She has written three first-place entries in the Charlotte Writers Club Children’s Story Contest and won the Jesse Stuart Prize for Young Adult Fiction in 2009. She was recently named a Road Scholar for the N.C. Humanities Council with special interest in southern fiction and child narrators.